Jim Blume, a missionary in Papua New Guinea for thirty years, has interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses

of the creature that islanders
of Umboi call “ropen.” He gave a telephone interview, in 2000, in which he described the creature to ropen investigator Garth Guessman. Blume’s findings suggest that long-tailed pterosaurs (Rhamphorhynchoids) are not extinct; many of them live in Papua New
Guinea.

According to Blume, the ropen has a long tail, with some reports describing a flange at the end of the tail. The wings
are much like a bat’s: “hands” half-way up the wings. Some ropens grow to have a wingspan of twenty feet, although in the northern
islands they’re smaller: wingspans of three to four feet.

The bill is like a pelican's but there’s a comb at the back of
the head, like a rooster comb “only stiffer.”

Some of the larger, darker-colored ropens are quite dangerous, sometimes killing
an adult human. In 1985, West of Finschhafen, a man was working in his garden when he was attacked by a ropen. When the other villagers
came to see what the noise was about, it was too late: The pterosaur-like creature carried the man into a large tree where it ate
him. (See the bookSearching for Ropens.)